What Happened, NRS?!

[Law Hero]

I usually like concept art, but the only concept art in this game is the fuckin NPC's. Who gives a fuck about NPC concept art when all the skins in this game look like lame Sun Do NPC's anyway?

Probably because releasing character concept art would spoil future DLC costumes for you to buy instead of food for the month.

 

[NoCharge]

Probably because releasing character concept art would spoil future DLC costumes for you to buy instead of food for the month.

I'd say release them and let the demand grow into future dlc.

 

[Juxtapose]

The game was released early, likely for financial reasons. Most likely that's WB Games decision and not NetherRealm Studios. Another 6 months was needed, I think.

For me, I'm playing Single Player and going pretty casual this time out. I enjoyed the Story Mode and Invasions Season 1 and I'm looking forward to Season 2. Otherwise, I'm playing Klassic Towers and local fights against the Hard AI. The game, and it's content, reminds me a lot of Mortal Kombat X.

What irks me a lot is, at least for the characters I play, I'm not big on their strings; especially as starters. For Mileena it's basically 1,2. For Kitana, it's either B2,4 or 2,4,1,2. That's it really. For all the complaints about Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate's gameplay being boring and "repetitive," those same characters had multiple great starters to use in a variety of situations.

For a game about "player expression," I find in Mortal Kombat 1 I'm mostly doing the same kombo over and over anyway. I find it funny as I actually feel more limited than I did in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate.

I also despise how there's so many strings that need to be dialed in fully to cancel from. Like Mileena's F1,4,4. You can't just do F1,4. While strings like this have existed before, there's a lot of them now. For Kitana, not being able to use Fanado off 1,1 is nuts.

I'm absolutely enjoying the game for what it is, don't get me wrong, but it's not the be-all-end-all.

It also doesn't feel next gen. Not that many games do this generation.

 

[trufenix]

The only part of the game they finished was the store, and even that shit isn't done. They just finished the part that takes money.

You can thank everybody who said SF5 was okay for this.

 

[BS3OOO]

This but I'll have to add a 4th one

4. Practice mode always having to press start and look at move commands is annoying.

5. I don't like this new 3/5 bs in ranked. I noticed at EVO it was the same way I think it's ridiculous. Tournament 3/5 is not as annoying vs constantly doing them online in ranked.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they added the ability to pin strings/moves to the screen now. I was playing some casual matches with one of my friends with random characters, and it allowed me to pin moves. It should’ve been added originally

 

[xRantex]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they added the ability to pin strings/moves to the screen now. I was playing some casual matches with one of my friends with random characters, and it allowed me to pin moves. It should’ve been added originally

Cool I didn't know that, thanks. Lol

 

[NoCharge]

Wait, so if a fatality costs 12$, how much are gonna cost dlc characters? I'm presuming 15$ for kameos and 25$ for base character? Lol

 

[Amplified$hotz]

The game was released early, likely for financial reasons. Most likely that's WB Games decision and not NetherRealm Studios. Another 6 months was needed, I think.

For me, I'm playing Single Player and going pretty casual this time out. I enjoyed the Story Mode and Invasions Season 1 and I'm looking forward to Season 2. Otherwise, I'm playing Klassic Towers and local fights against the Hard AI. The game, and it's content, reminds me a lot of Mortal Kombat X.

What irks me a lot is, at least for the characters I play, I'm not big on their strings; especially as starters. For Mileena it's basically 1,2. For Kitana, it's either B2,4 or 2,4,1,2. That's it really. For all the complaints about Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate's gameplay being boring and "repetitive," those same characters had multiple great starters to use in a variety of situations.

For a game about "player expression," I find in Mortal Kombat 1 I'm mostly doing the same kombo over and over anyway. I find it funny as I actually feel more limited than I did in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate.

I also despise how there's so many strings that need to be dialed in fully to cancel from. Like Mileena's F1,4,4. You can't just do F1,4. While strings like this have existed before, there's a lot of them now. For Kitana, not being able to use Fanado off 1,1 is nuts.

I'm absolutely enjoying the game for what it is, don't get me wrong, but it's not the be-all-end-all.

It also doesn't feel next gen. Not that many games do this generation.

Great post. I wish this game had a lot of moves like tekken. I know it would be too much to remember so not as many.

But something unique they could do is different kameos giving you different strings like how Darrius’ assist works.

 

[chud_munson]

BUT... then you look at it as a video game in general. That's where it all falls apart.

I think this nails it. Looking at what's good about this game, it's the beautiful visuals, the high budget story mode, and the actual gameplay. But none of those things are very appealing for the average casual video game player. MK1 is good for people who want a movie or a hobby. But as a video game, it's got a frankly incredible number of problems and shortcomings. If you're not interested in labbing and refining your skills against other people, I don't really know what a casual player is supposed to do after they're done watching the movie and playing through the pretty dry Invasions mode.

I'm not really big on claiming that I know what's going on under the hood in a company I don't work for, but it would make a lot of sense that this game came out earlier than expected because of Suicide Squad getting pushed back. The dearth of content and the egregiously priced microtransactions really smacks of "uh oh, we need to make money quick to hit our EOY targets".

 

[Amplified$hotz]

The game is lacking a lot. There’s not much to do outside of playing sets and training mode. Which, no matter how competitive you are, no one wants to do all the time.

Some content ideas I have a part from dlc characters:

Story mode expansion

Giving all klassic skins from mk1-mk11 free but unlockable

Add classic stages from MK1-MK11

Add a 2v2 main character tag mode or kameo less mode.

Share pro komp streams on the home page

Add Sub-Zero’s voice as an announcer

Motor Kombat

Most of this won’t make it past the cost benefit analysis, but a boy can dream.

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

Love the gameplay of MK1 but there needs to be bug fixes, QoL additions and the single player XP drops almost nothing, that should be increased, give us at least 20 Dragon Crystals per win and on level at least 25 Dragon Crystals.
The Datamines show 38 characters and 25 total Kameos so I'm happy with that.
I'm not very excited about caped super heros in Mortal Kombat but I am Excited about fan favorites like Ermac, Quan, Takeda, Noob, Sektor, Cyrax, Cassie Cage all in datamined files as playable characters.
I hope Tremor has Crystal Armor in his Crystalline variation. Hope his ball roll in metallic variation is a low and delayable. His triple low looks like a good setup move but might not be ambush.

All in all I love MK1 gameplay but Skins, Single Player is lacking severally. There is a ton of glitches and bugs and basic features that need to be added. For example online needs practice mode, the KL rank needs to be character specific so you can go online with different characters and build up your skills with that character. It's stupid seeing every pro player using 5+ accounts online.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

23 characters? Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s the least we’ve started with since MK9, AND you had two fully developed characters that you sidelined (Quan chi and Ermac) to later sell as DLC instead.

I'd rather have 23 characters that are mostly interesting and unique, than 30 characters at launch where 15 of them aren't very interesting or complete or even viable.

Because once you have a launch character that's uninteresting, there's not a lot of hope for them for the rest of the game's life.

This is the first MK where most characters have interesting quirks. depth, and unique mechanics, rather than just the DLC. I much prefer that to getting the equivalent of MK9 Stryker day one just because he fills a roster spot.

 

[Moms4lif3]

This but I'll have to add a 4th one

4. Practice mode always having to press start and look at move commands is annoying.

5. I don't like this new 3/5 bs in ranked. I noticed at EVO it was the same way I think it's ridiculous. Tournament 3/5 is not as annoying vs constantly doing them online in ranked.

They changed that for practice mode in the last patch, u can pin moves now!

i didnt like mk11, so this game speaks to me wayyy more from a gameplay perspective, I find playing this game very fun so far, so I cant agree with most people in here on that...

I will say that I was incredibly disappointed with some of the content, especially things I simply expected to be the norm now

-theres only like 2-3 outfits per character (Johnny ofc got more LOL) and some of the outfits/color swaps are just awful designs - I hate pretty much every single Johnny outfit except the Indiana Jones one, the track suit or whatever is makes me sick to look at
-NO CROSSPLAY??! seriously, what the fuck, honestly I thought this was a given now - keeping the player bases seperate is so stupid and it makes finding people with good ping way harder than it should be
-practice mode had some crucial things missing, after the patch its mostly fine
-Krypt feels sorta useless, I feel like no ingame currency actually gets u cool shit? Mightve been the 1st season too, I didnt like all the yellow and orange and red, but I really hope next season we get some cool stuff
-invasions got boring pretty quick, but these game modes never really were my cup of tea anyways
-some characters clearly got TONS of love from the developers, others feel a bit mid honestly... like why have Johnny and Raiden sooo many tools and scorpion is just kinda the same as before?? Idk, they need to take another look

these are some of the things I find very disappointing about the release, I do like the game tho

in conparison to mk11 theres actually a reason to go into training mode now and try shit out - in MK11 u could literally figure out most characters in under an hour and then u could use practice mode to learn wavedashing and flawless blocking and stuff I guess?? Idk, experimentation is one of the things that is very important to me in fgs and this game has that going for sure

 

[Arqwart]

The game was released early, likely for financial reasons. Most likely that's WB Games decision and not NetherRealm Studios. Another 6 months was needed, I think.

For me, I'm playing Single Player and going pretty casual this time out. I enjoyed the Story Mode and Invasions Season 1 and I'm looking forward to Season 2. Otherwise, I'm playing Klassic Towers and local fights against the Hard AI. The game, and it's content, reminds me a lot of Mortal Kombat X.

What irks me a lot is, at least for the characters I play, I'm not big on their strings; especially as starters. For Mileena it's basically 1,2. For Kitana, it's either B2,4 or 2,4,1,2. That's it really. For all the complaints about Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate's gameplay being boring and "repetitive," those same characters had multiple great starters to use in a variety of situations.

For a game about "player expression," I find in Mortal Kombat 1 I'm mostly doing the same kombo over and over anyway. I find it funny as I actually feel more limited than I did in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate.

I also despise how there's so many strings that need to be dialed in fully to cancel from. Like Mileena's F1,4,4. You can't just do F1,4. While strings like this have existed before, there's a lot of them now. For Kitana, not being able to use Fanado off 1,1 is nuts.

I'm absolutely enjoying the game for what it is, don't get me wrong, but it's not the be-all-end-all.

It also doesn't feel next gen. Not that many games do this generation.

Starting with MK11, NRS has had this weird idea that a ton of strings should just sorta.. be there? But not be worth anything 90%+ of the time? I see 0 reason to use the following Kitana strings outside niche situations:

• B33 / B34 / B343
• 4F33 / 4F334
• 242
• 14
• B14

This leaves me with just F12 (which is only really used in the corner as a slightly faster mid option over B24), 112, 2412, and B24. HALF her strings are predominantly useless, outclassed by other strings, and/or only minorly valuable in extremely specific scenarios utilizing a kameo (which is generally not worth the kameo bar as you get little to no damage off the situation anyway).

Don't get me wrong, I think Kitana is fun to play and powerful in this game. However, this is a perfect example of how NRS appears to design strings for the sake of having strings, not because they want them to be part of the character's gameplan. At least that's how it feels to me as strings like this are left to rot for forever. Gimme that MKX style power budgeting where characters had a slew of strings that were powerful in their separate ways: staggers, chip, combo starters, mixups, mindgames, frame traps, etc. MKX Kitana in contrast: 111, B14, F112, 24, 242, F22, F22U4, 33, and F43 were all great options to use. That leaves B122 as a niche option for hard knockdown in the corner and only U24, 3D4, and the two enders for 33 (332 and 334) as not really worth using.

People often brought up the argument against variations of characters not being "complete." THIS is where I find many characters to not be complete. It's an annoying waste of power budget to have these straggler strings sitting out there.

 

[Moms4lif3]

I'd rather have 23 characters that are mostly interesting and unique, than 30 characters at launch where 15 of them aren't very interesting or complete or even viable.

Because once you have a launch character that's uninteresting, there's not a lot of hope for them for the rest of the game's life.

This is the first MK where most characters have interesting quirks. depth, and unique mechanics, rather than just the DLC. I much prefer that to getting the equivalent of MK9 Stryker day one just because he fills a roster spot.

Agree, I feel like most characters sre pretty fun and have some cool, unique things to them

Ive only seriously played Sindel so far and labbing stuff with her is soo satisfying, she has a lot going on

one thing I dislike is that some characters got tons of tools and cool shit to do (maybe too much? looking and Raiden and Johnny lol) and some others characters feel more limited? Like Liu Kang seems pretty good, but he also seems pretty basic and boring?? Liu Kang, Scorpion, Kung Lao, Li Mei, Baraka... a lot of these characters are pretty good and I guess u need more 'basic' characters in FGs as well... but theyre kinda lacking some nice sauce, hell even Ryu and Ken got really cool and fun shit to do in SF6 now

 

[LEGEND]

This is the first MK where most characters have interesting quirks. depth, and unique mechanics, rather than just the DLC. I much prefer that to getting the equivalent of MK9 Stryker day one just because he fills a roster spot.

Hey

MK9 Stryker is very fun to play. Multi layered zoning, cancels, OSs and gimmicky 50/50s, Armor that does 18% and can only be punished by 2 characters. . . and personally the aesthetic of a regular dude with a gun going up against all the MK craziness is awesome.

So what if he sucked? balance is hella over rated.

 

[MateoFoShizzle]

Hey

MK9 Stryker is very fun to play. Multi layered zoning, cancels, OSs and gimmicky 50/50s, Armor that does 18% and can only be punished by 2 characters. . . and personally the aesthetic of a regular dude with a gun going up against all the MK craziness is awesome.

So what if he sucked? balance is hella over rated.

Stryker was my #2 main after smoke

 

[trufenix]

Lol, mk9 Stryker is older than some Evo finalists. Y'all have got to let that game go.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I’m just gonna copy / paste what I said in a status a few days ago, sums up everything I feel about this game and NRS. I have too much self respect to engage with this shit and invest real time into something where the people behind it obviously have such little respect for the people who choose to spend their time and money on it. A lot of gamers (especially FG and FPS) are simply addicted and have a very unhealthy and degenerate relationship with games, and will play whatever is shat out in front of them and WB / NRS know this. They already robbed you of your money, don’t let them cuck you out of your time, which is even more precious. Make no mistake, this is slop designed to keep you coming back to their store.

Anyhow, here’s what I said and I stand by it:

Good God, with the state of MK1 at release, the $10 skins, $10 for a fucking fatality which is essentially a tiny cutscene that people are buying, on top of a $70 game is fucking insane ($110 if you want the full game). The greed from WB and / or NRS is off the charts, they have absolutely no respect for their audience. MK fans unfortunately respect themselves even less and will buy any slop they put out that gives them a warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling.

RE4 Remake was $60, not $70 and their full DLC campaign was $10. NRS thinks that is an appropriate value for a SKIN. $40 dollars for the kombat pack dude, 6 characters is worth more than half the cost of the entire game? Are you kidding me? It's like a mobile game. I like the game but I respect my free time too much to deal with this shit, I certainly wouldn't have bought it if it weren't a gift. When I could be playing a different game or engaging with any of my other hobbies especially.

 

[M2Dave]

At the moment, apart from online, you have a frustrating, repetitive and boring invasion mode and a story mode that you play once - that is it.

The online gameplay is frustrating too. At least Kombat League is.

No option to reject WIFI players. No online practice mode in between matches. No ranking based on character. No ability to mute or unmute players during matches in case you happen to run into a friend.

Instead, we have to read messages and wait for screens to load... "the player has left"... "updating"... "updating calendar"... Who cares?

If Kombat League was designed to improve the player, the mode fails miserably. How am I supposed to react to random Smoke WIFI fools abusing b+2 in unstable connections? I swear if I get hit by more b+2s, I will have to blow up Smoke players like I did in Mortal Kombat 9.

The golden standard for online gameplay is Street Fighter 6. Anything less for a modern fighting game is unacceptable., and if Tekken 8 online fails to deliver, Namco ought to be blown up as well.

I understand that every fighting game company is a business whose primary objective is to make profits, and I am willing to contribute to those profits if the product is deserving. However, this game is a conspicuous cash grab and a tribute to the casual audience.

Keep speaking up, folks, even if you have to do so with your wallet. Remember Street Fighter 5 on release? Capcom has learned their lesson. WB / NRS needs do the same.

 

[Son ov Timett]

Starting with MK11, NRS has had this weird idea that a ton of strings should just sorta.. be there? But not be worth anything 90%+ of the time? I see 0 reason to use the following Kitana strings outside niche situations:

• B33 / B34 / B343
• 4F33 / 4F334
• 242
• 14
• B14

This leaves me with just F12 (which is only really used in the corner as a slightly faster mid option over B24), 112, 2412, and B24. HALF her strings are predominantly useless, outclassed by other strings, and/or only minorly valuable in extremely specific scenarios utilizing a kameo (which is generally not worth the kameo bar as you get little to no damage off the situation anyway).

Don't get me wrong, I think Kitana is fun to play and powerful in this game. However, this is a perfect example of how NRS appears to design strings for the sake of having strings, not because they want them to be part of the character's gameplan. At least that's how it feels to me as strings like this are left to rot for forever. Gimme that MKX style power budgeting where characters had a slew of strings that were powerful in their separate ways: staggers, chip, combo starters, mixups, mindgames, frame traps, etc. MKX Kitana in contrast: 111, B14, F112, 24, 242, F22, F22U4, 33, and F43 were all great options to use. That leaves B122 as a niche option for hard knockdown in the corner and only U24, 3D4, and the two enders for 33 (332 and 334) as not really worth using.

People often brought up the argument against variations of characters not being "complete." THIS is where I find many characters to not be complete. It's an annoying waste of power budget to have these straggler strings sitting out there.

Agreed on some of those strings. Her offense literally dies up close unless you're risking half your life doing some b.s shenanigans. B34 into fan lift for example. This fraudulent crap will get you blown tf up. Hence 24 and b24 for days.

She needs some sort of overhead option outside the kicks, elsewise it's just bland strike/throw bs and poke fishing. Her fishing game is better than Andy Griffith, but compared to the rest of the cast it isn't enough. Just small minute tweaks to her moveset would make her komplete.

Maybe make b34 an overhead. Shit's slow af, no reason why it's a high. Her ass is all up on the opponent asking for some tongue play. Right now there's zero reason to ever block her high. Just block low and take a nap.

Add hit advantage to 1,4 to give time to lay down a wind bomb or other oki. (This string currently is useless.)


B14 has utility in the slight plus frames and the pushback. The frames come useful in the corner, the pushback everywhere else. Kitana excels at sweep range. I've been wanting to incorporate it more, but as you said the other strings are so good, what's the point?

 

[chrisisnice]

This may be a little random, but I am playing the game now, and I noticed that one of the other little things really missing in this game is the character dialogue at the start of the game. You only see these if you are online or playing 2 player. You literally see none ever if you are in single player mode.

It may sound silly, but these are characters we have known for such a long time that it makes the game feel a lot less personal if you are not seeing those interactions. Again, this is a little fan service that I mentioned before that is missing. Having a little bit of interaction is important as it gives a little distraction and personality to the game while you are grinding something like invasions or towers. At the moment, it is just the same few fight intros over and over again. Perhaps this could have been a toggle?

 

[Juxtapose]

This may be a little random, but I am playing the game now, and I noticed that one of the other little things really missing in this game is the character dialogue at the start of the game. You only see these if you are online or playing 2 player. You literally see none ever if you are in single player mode.

It may sound silly, but these are characters we have known for such a long time that it makes the game feel a lot less personal if you are not seeing those interactions. Again, this is a little fan service that I mentioned before that is missing. Having a little bit of interaction is important as it gives a little distraction and personality to the game while you are grinding something like invasions or towers. At the moment, it is just the same few fight intros over and over again. Perhaps this could have been a toggle?

Absolutely. As someone who enjoys Single Player modes, the lack of Intros in Klassic Towers is a bit disappointing. On the other hand, it's oddly Mortal Kombat (2011) nostalgic.

 

[spidey300]

you're pretty much saying what's true. shitty business practices, terrible publisher, rushed release, and lack of content aside; the gameplay is really fun. at least vastly more fun than that of mk11. i just think nrs doesn't really have the expertise to make an assist fighter the core part of it's gameplay. they needed to consult/hire some people that have deep knowledge of how they should be. this era of nrs players don't really play assist fighters anyway so it makes them more mad than anything.

 

[EdFig81]

My biggest issue with this game is the following and its like 1 step forward 3 steps back imo.

1. QOL issues
2. No way to invite my friend which i play all NRS games to a king of the hill match thats not private
3. servers are weird. I can play MK11 with my friend on PC lives next building over Ping in game is 30-40. In MK Uno we play and pings can be good and at times 300+ for no reason. Its like the game connects you to any server and doesn't look at local servers as a priority.
4. Pumpkin fatality
5. PC version dropping frames for no reason on a POWERFUL gaming PC
6. Cross play not even out yet

Game play wise i like the game. but i feel this game is just missing so much stuff and I legit want to play it but i find myself annoyed. Gameplay better then 11 no doubt and reminds me more of 9 but it feels like a beta right now and i am tight at spending 100+ for early access beta.

EDIT there are other issues also i feel.
I feel this game needed more time in development and it had to be released by 4th quarter because of a stock meeting earlier this year talking about the game coming out.